Distraught

I write this blog today in a sad state of mind. My life has been seriously complicated by a really crappy situation. Every time this situation comes to mind, it ruins my day, it makes me depressed, and it makes me want to cry. When I get depressed, I tend to get angry as well, then tend to lash out at my loved ones. It's awful. On top of that, it puts me in a bad mood, and I'm not pleasant to be around. I just want to be left alone by my family, but I want my friends close. But whenever I really want to talk to a friend about it, nobody's online to chat. :( I want this situation to go away. But, it can't until I can completely surpess it in my thoughts. I give it to God every night, but it still crowds my thought and memories. It helps now to write this out, and it helps to rant in my journal, but that's only a temporary relief. I can't take it anymore. Where's the situation-be-gone gel that I can rub on my head to erase my memories of it?? I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!! I want it to GO AWAY!!! :(

My 21st birthday!!

Well, my 21st birthday was yesterday and OH MY GOSH!!!! It was the BEST!!!

For starters, Friday night, 3 of my girlfriends (Kim, Cassie, and Monida) from the Bible College I attend came over. Cassie and Monida came over at 3 after my Journalism class. We had to wait for Kim to get off work, so Cassie, Monida, and I played Uno and Yahtzee while watching parts 1 and 2 of an HBO mini-series on John Adams (extra credit assingment for their history class). Then, when that series was over, we started playing Scategories. Monida is way to freakin' smart! lol. We were laughing so hard at some of the answers we came up with. Kim finally showed up around 7 and joined into our Scategories game which brough even more laughter. When we finsihed up, we ate pizza (Hawaiian with white sauce - my favorite) and watched Alvin and Chipmunks and the Squeakquel (which didn't end until 1 am. Kim and I were the only ones awake to the end).

Saturday, we got up, got dressed, ate toaster waffles, and left to go SKYDIVNG!!!!! Cassie unfortunately had to work, so she couldn't dive with us. She left early Saturday morning. My parents drove me, Kim, and Monida down to the Parachute Center in Lodi. They have the best prices, safety ratings, and drop zone in Northern California. We got down there, paid (my parents paid for me, it was my birthday present), then signed our lives away on the liability waiver/release. We got our numbers (jumpers 24 [Kim], 24 [Me], and 25 [Monida]) turned in our paperwork, went to the bathroom, then we heard our numbers called!! We went in back, got harnassed up, and went to the waiting area. Then, we loaded onto the plane. I was the first one in (last one out), Kim was the last one on.

Once we took off, my instructor made me sit all the way back against HIS 'chute and gear and he went and co-piloted the plane (that startled me). But, he came back as people were getting ready to jump. My friend Kim was sitting on the floor by the door and she didn't even notice that the door had been opened before she was out! lol. I was the last one out. The free fall was sooooo awesome, tho a bit cold (I was only wearing capris shorts and a t-shirt). And, I had to force myself to breathe. I kept like holding my breath, then realized "oh, breath out!". lol. There was one point, about 2 seconds after we jumped that I thought "HOLY CRAP!!! I JUST JUMPED OUT OF AN AIRPLANE!!" But, 2 seconds later, I was thinking "AWESOME!! I just jumped out of an airplane!" The camera lady jumped out with us and fimled up to the point my instructor pulled our chute. She free fell for a little bit longer, and in the end, had to deploy her back-up 'chute because her first one was tangled; so she didn't film my landing. But, my dad got some pics for me.

Basically, after my instructor pulled our chute, we floated down for a long time. Probably a good 5 minutes. Idk. But, it was fun. The landing was pretty easy. My instructor told me to put my feet up, and we made a running landing (which means we landed on our feet, not sliding in on our butts) lol. But, overall it was an AWESOME experience. Definately something I would do again. The only problem was that after I landed, I was exhausted. It's from the adrenaline rush, then crash. I was so tired the rest of the day (and running on not much sleep). But, it was SSSOOOO worth it!! I hope to be able to go again in the near future!! :D

Monida, Kim, and I survived our jump!!!

Pass the Salt

Recently, I had the privilege of preaching in chapel at the Bible college I go to. The title of my message was "pass the Salt." This post is the basics of the message I shared.

Let me ask you this question: "Is your salt, salty?" Matthew 5:13 says, "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men." Typically, when asked, "What is salt good for?" the most common responses I hear or think of are "to add flavor/to season" and "to preserve." But, there's another purpose of salt - it makes you thirsty. That got me thinking - if we, as Christians, are truly living as the salt of the earth, then the people around us should be thirsty for the Living Water. If the people around you are not thirsty, not noticing what it is that's different about you, then you're living too much like the unflavored world. It's time to stop saving all good seasoning for ourselves, and pass the salt.

Perhaps the reason people are not thirsting for Living Water is because we are only around other Christians. Are we in a position where we can pass the salt? And, if we are around those who need Living Water, are we holding it back and keeping it to ourselves because we're embarrassed by our faith, or afraid of what others might think of us? Or are we freely giving what has been freely given to us? Jesus is the Living Water (see John 4) and people should be thirsty for Him.

I've been thinking a lot about how salt affects the cells of our bodies. The ideal situation for a cell is an isotonic state. This is when the salt concentration is the same on the inside and outside of a cell. When this happens, water can flow easily in and out of a cell at the same rate. However, if there is more salt inside our cells than in the environment around them, the cells will take in water from their surroundings, swell, and possibly burst. This is called a hypotonic cell. And, just the opposite, if there's more salt on the outside than the inside, the water will flow out of the cells faster than it can come in, causing the cells to shrink and shrivel up. This is called a hypertonic cell.

Relating this back to Christians, I came to understand that if we keep all of the salt inside of us (if we never share God's Word and our faith), we become swollen, "stealing" the water from the environment. Furthermore, if we put so much salt out there, that all the water leaves us, our spiritual life shrivels up. However, if we allow the salt to saturate equally between us and the environment, we will live in a state where Living Water both leaves us and fills us. We need to be like isotonic cells and find the middle ground between sharing our faith and building our faith.

What kind of Christian are you? Are you hypotonic, swollen with yourself and your own righteousness? Are you hypertonic, shriveling away, concerned so much with others that you forget to build your own spiritual walk? Or are you isotonic, allowing God's living water to flow both in and out of you? Let's live as God intended us to, and pass the Salt!!

Lifehouse Everything Skit

We performed this at my church on Sundary, February 10, 2008 for our 10:30 Contemporary service! I love this skit - it is ssooooooo powerful! If you're not in tears, you'll at least have the chills after watching it. Jesus saved us from sooo much! You can see it here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=nQxCbItEmss

We also did the skit for the church's college Saturday night service. It was awesome there. I actually had one different cast member (because he was sick). Instead of Nathanael as Money, my friend John Paul played the part. He learned it only 15 minutes before the performance. He rocks like that. You can see this one here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FrWnfIl_C3s

I am Concerned

I am really concerned about today's youth. Many young people profess to be Christians in today's world, but very few live it out. During high school Awana tonight, I was working on my doctrine homework because I wasn't needed as a leader at that moment. Mr. Sexton was teaching the lesson and it was on "gray areas" of the Christian walk. One thing he said really gripped my heart. He said that about 93% of 13 year olds believe that they are Christians, but really are not. I could barely believe that I heard him correctly - that means only 7% of 13 year olds in this country are truly Evangelical Christians. How sad. Another thing I've noticed is that even those teenagers that profess to be Christians and walk the walk are confused in some ways. I read a lot of the bulletins that get posted here on myspace and sometimes what they say truly shock me. I've seen several quiz bulletins that say "what do you think about abortion?" and the answers of some people really surprised me. Many of the answers say "It's your choice" or "I guess it's ok." That truly surprised me. As Christians, we should believe that abortion is not OK, even more so that it is flat out wrong. Abortion, in every way, shape and form, is MURDER. If you were to research how an abortion is performed and what it does to the baby, I believe you would be horrified. When I read about abortion in my health book in the 7th or 8th grade, I was crying. My mom walked into my room and saw me crying and asked me what was wrong. I just showed her the book - I couldn't even speak. I was moritified.

I cannot even begin to voice how scared I am for America. I'm sure you've all heard the popular saying "Children are our future." In fact, there's a song by Whitney Houston where she starts out by singing "I believe that children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way, Show them all the beauty they possess inside." With the children being our nation's future, consider where we will be when they are grown. If today's children have confused and twisted beliefs, how much worse will our nation be in 20 years? I'm scared to say this, but I think that within the next 20 or 30 years, America will no longer be a free nation. We're certainly no longer a Christian nation. We need help raise up children with a Godly, Biblical worldview if we want to see America live. We need to help our youth straighten out their beliefs so that they will be able to better help those younger. In many churches, we have lost the practice of discipleship. We convert people and give them a pat on the back, but leave them to grow up on their own. No wonder so many people go astray. They were not properly discipled; they didn't get to grow up in Christ. Many believers are being lead astray because they were still only drinking milk; they were never able to partake of the "solid food" that the apostle Paul talked about in Hebrews 5.

"For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." (Hebrews 5:12-14)

So, before I close out this blog, I want you to conisder something - are you still just a babe drinking milk? Or, are you of full age and eating meat? If you are of full age, please, please help disciple those who are still babes. Help our youth get on fire for God. One of my college professors said that, "every revival in history started with some youth." Friends, America NEEDS a revival. Please help those youth to get on fire for God and let's be the change that we want to see in our dying world.

Whoa - the effects of no sleep

Ha ha ha!! This is hilarious. So, last night, I was up all night long. I had homework due this morning and it wasn't done. I logged onto myspace because I needed Nicole's help on a question (we have the same class together). Then, she gave me her yahoo IM screen name. So, I logged onto IM and then she gave me Crystal's screen name. We pulled an all nighter. I only got 15 mintues of sleep that night!! It was pretty crazy. lol. Nicole and I were working on homework for the same class, but poor Crystal was working on an assignment for a different class. But we were all helping each other stay awake to finish our assignments. I was IMing Crystal, Crystal was IMing Nicole, and Nicole was IMing me. lol. So, we were all having fun. Well, the time kept getting later and later. Well, we were all really tired so, you can imagine our conversations started getting a little on the wacky side. lol. The 3 of us decided that we are crazy, homework doing, chatty zombies. lol. So, Crystal and I were just randomly posting little blurbs (the audibles) and one of them said "All the ladies in the house say..." So, when she posted that I finsihed it by quoting KJ-52 "Uh, gimme that mountain dew". So, we just kept randomly posting lyrics to his song "Mountain Dew Anonymous". It was funny. So, we kept saying "Uh, gimme that Mountain Dew". We were laughing soooooooo hard. So, I told Crystal - We totally have to get Mountain Dews during break and take pictures. And she was like "oh totally". lol. So, we ended up pulling an all nighter to finish our homework. Then, when I got to school, I saw Crystal, and I said "Say it with me" and in unison we said "Uh, gimme that Mountain Dew". On break I bought 2 Mountain Dews - one for me and one for Crystal. Then, when we got to chapel, I gave her the Mountain Dew. Oh my gosh - I drank about half of it and then I started getting all loopy. Like crazy, jumpy, psychotic loopy. I was running up to people and saying "hi, how are you? how is your day going?" and stuff like that. Then I started getting all shaky - I litterally felt like I was drunk because I would try to walk somewhere and fall over because I was soooooo shaky. Everyone was asking me if I was ok. Today was a loopy, crazy, psychotic day. It is important to get sleep everybody - take it from somebody who's been there. I had total mush brain today - I swear, my brain turned into yogurt. lol. So, to my crazy, homework doing, chatty zombie buddies, this one's for you!

"Uh, gimme that Mountain Dew. I ain't playin' with you, you better give me my Mountain Dew!"

Randomness

So, yah... last night my older brother, Josh, and his girlfriend, Kristin, came over. They brough pizza for dinner and the Master of Disguise for us to watch together. After we ate and watched the movie, Josh, Kristin, and Andrew (my younger bro) decided to go swimming. I didn't want to go because last time I went swimming, my cold got 10 times worse. Anywho, Kristin decided the water was too cold, so she and I went inside and watched Phantom of the Opera (well, the last half of it, we watched the first half last time she was over). Josh and Andrew shortly came in from the pool, and started watching the movie with us. Josh was positively HISTERICAL!! He can usually guess the plots of movies, but he couldn't figure this one out. He kept asking questions and being ticked off at the answers. When the movie finished, he was going on and on about how the Phantom is on "emotional crack". He started making all sorts of up and down noises followed by splat noises to show how his soul "dies" because Christine chose Raoul. It was just really funny.